For Fake Ears
by Julia Claire
Summary: Ginny never expected Christmas dinner to be so quiet, so empty.  Oneshot set during DH, with mentions of Ginny/Harry.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**A/N: Written for the Hogwarts Online Forum Christmas Collaboration.**

For Fake Ears

"The turkey is excellent, Molly."

Her mum gave a vague bob of the head that was probably supposed to indicate thanks, refusing, as she had all day, to meet anyone's eyes. Ginny reckoned she was trying to prevent them from seeing the tears, the red eyes, that marked this Christmas so much more miserable than the last. Her mum probably thought she could fool them into being happy. Ginny snorted.

Aunt Muriel, who had decided, this year, to rejoin them for Christmas dinner, sniffed. "I've had better. It's a tad overcooked."

"Guess it would be," Fred muttered, sullen, not his usual self at all, "if you liked your meat raw…"

"What was that, young man?" she snapped, dropping her fork with a clatter. For all her other flaws, Muriel had excellent hearing.

On any other year, her mother would have reprimanded Fred, before turning on her father, who wouldn't have been able to resist from snickering along with the rest of his children. Fred – or perhaps George – would have snapped back at Muriel with some clever comeback. But none of them said anything now, instead focusing resolutely on the food in front of them.

Muriel looked satisfied, as if she was the victor of some great battle, as if anyone at this table could win anything, in these times. "Pass the salt, Ginevra."

Ginny pretended not to hear this as she tore into a drumstick with a ferocity that probably better suited a wild dog than a girl.

"I said to _pass the salt_, Ginevra," Muriel said, her voice reaching a dangerous level. "I'm one hundred and seven, for Merlin's sake!"

Not entirely sure what that had to do with anything, Ginny continued to eat her drumstick.

Her mum made a weak sort of noise that was probably supposed to mean, "Do as your aunt says, if you know what's good for you."

Suddenly fed up with everything, she thrust the shaker at Muriel, and stomped over to the counter. She piled her plate full to bursting with third helpings of everything – she had always eaten more like a teenage boy than her brothers did, and this year, she seemed unable to stop. What else was there to do, this Christmas?

Besides, they had twice as much food as usual, despite being only a party of six. If Ginny was an angry eater, her mum was a nervous cook, and she had seemed to think - though never exactly saying so - that she needed to prepare a feast, just in case one of her missing boys came home.

For the thousandth time, Ginny scanned the table, thinking of how empty it looked, how quiet… The conversation so far had consisted mostly of Muriel's complaints, with only feeble attempts about the food and an ear joke, from her father and George.

Ginny hated it. _Christmas_was supposed to mean that everyone was crowded around the too-small dinner table, getting into fights, because someone had accidentally stuck their elbow in someone else's plate reaching for the butter dish that was right next to them. It was supposed to mean that everyone was talking at once, so loud no one could hear themselves. It wasn't supposed to be like this, angry and sad and nervous, all of them spread out along the table, with so much empty space between that Ginny felt she needed to eat and eat and eat just to fill it all up.

She missed Charlie, who hadn't been able to risk traveling across Europe, and Bill, who had decided to spend Christmas alone with Fleur, which pissed her off more than anything, and Ron, who was Merlin-knew-where, risking his life with Harry and Hermione. She looked down at her mountain of food, wondering if they had anything at all, but really, she didn't want to think about the three of them, especially not _him_. At least they were together.

It just seemed like everyone was gone, had left her behind to sit at a near-empty table. They'd taken Luna away, off the train (but she was all right because she just bloody had to be; she had to), and Mad-Eye was dead and half the Order was on the run and who the hell knew who would turn up dead next, while she was stuck eating and eating, doing nothing useful.

She slouched back to her chair, starting to shovel food in her mouth before she even sat down.

"Merlin's nose, Ginny," Aunt Muriel - who always used the strangest expressions - said disgustedly. "More food? And you're not exactly skinny to begin with..."

In answer, Ginny took bigger bites. George gave a weak chuckle, like he'd wanted to laugh, but it'd died in his throat.

Muriel, whose sole purpose in life, Ginny supposed, was to cause as much trouble as humanly possible, said, in a low voice that was nevertheless audible to everyone at the table, "I guess you think you can let yourself go, now that your boyfriend's not coming back -"

"I don't have a boyfriend." It was an automatic response, a reflex, by this point, after months and months of them asking about Harry, months and months of facing the painful realisation that she didn't know any more than they did. It wasn't just an attempt to get the facts dead right, or to brush them off; it was all a survival tactic. If she didn't have a boyfriend, she couldn't lose one.

Aunt Muriel snorted. "Oh, honey, you can't fool me. I saw the way you looked at that Potter boy... But he's dead, by now, or else, if he's not, he's captured. There's no way a seventeen-year-old whose only claim to fame is a big scratch on his face could avoid the Death Eaters for that long. I always said he was a fool for running away - he should have stood and fought like a man." She shot one last look at Ginny and took one, final blow. "Worse than a fool. A coward."

Ginny had the time to think, strangely, that it was very lucky Aunt Muriel didn't know about Ron being with Harry, at least for now, or else she'd be forced to hear about how awful, and probably dead her brother was too. After that, she lost all sense of herself, only knowing that she had stood, quivering with indignation, intending to give some great, big speech that would put the stupid old woman in her place. She'd wanted to say something to make it all meaningful, make Harry a hero, make sense of why he'd left her behind, but realising she couldn't do any of that.

She didn't know herself.

And so she stood and screamed and ranted, using all her best swear words, the ones her brothers probably hadn't even known she'd picked up, stringing them together in phrases that they probably hadn't thought of, either.

When she was finished, she expected uproar, but instead there was only silence, broken only by her mother's empty, racking sobs - when she had begun to cry, Ginny wasn't sure. The twins stared at her with stricken faces - she had expected laughter from them, support, and her father looked blankly out the window, remarking that it was snowing. Worst of all, Muriel gave a short, barking chuckle, looking amused, satisfied to have at last provoked such a spectacle.

Ginny left the room, her face twisting, trying hard not to let the stupid old bat see her cry, but not knowing what to do, because there seemed to be nothing. Everything was different, wrong, strangers sat in the seats her family had once occupied, and she felt like screaming, but she'd already done that, and it'd done no good at all.

In the end, she went to her room, half-expecting herself to fall on the bed and cry, not knowing if she could hold the tears back any longer. But she didn't cry, instead sitting on her bed and staring out the window, out at the gray sky, speckled with white, the muddy grass poking through the sprinkling of snow. It was an ugly winter.

She remembered how Harry had remarked what a nice view she had, from here, and how annoyed she had been by that, because it was such a feeble, weak, nothing thing to say. She'd give anything to have that moment back now, to have her nice view again, to have him again, saying stupid things.

It usually made her feel good, when she didn't let herself cry, because after all, crying served no purpose to help anything, was downright stupid. However, if anything, on this messed-up, mixed-up day, it just made her feel worse. Was she so empty that she had no tears left?

After some time - Merlin himself didn't know how much - there was a knock on the door, and she jumped at the sound, as though she had forgotten that she wasn't entirely alone.

Fred and George entered with such strange, forced smiles that they hardly looked like themselves. "Muriel left," George said. "Thank Godric. I thought we'd seen the last of her that Christmas when we set off that Dungbomb..."

"I don't know why we're bothering with this whole war thing, honestly," Fred said. "I say we just send Muriel to You-Know-Who's for Christmas dinner. I don't care if he's immortal, or whatever... Muriel could annoy a rock to death."

He sounded like himself, when he said that, in his familiar, joking fashion, and for that, she was grateful.

"Good theory," she said, laughing, though it had a bitter edge that she hadn't intended.

"Yeah," Fred said. "Only problem is that once Muriel kills off old Snake Breath, we'd have to find someone to finish off Muriel, wouldn't we?"

"I volunteer," she said, and they laughed.

"You two are awful," George said, after a moment, still chuckling. "Talking about killing you great-aunt, in these times?"

"Yeah, well," Ginny said, in a too-hard, bitter voice that did not suit her, even to her own ears. "Everything's awful, so why shouldn't we be, too?"

The twins laughter stopped abruptly. "Gin - " Fred began.

She did not want to hear it, did not want to hear how far over the line she'd crossed, did not want help, or comfort, in coming back to herself. "Shut it, Fred."

She turned away from them, feeling their eyes burning into the back of her neck.

"Did you see what Fred got me for Christmas?" George asked, after a moment, nervously, almost sounding wary of her.

His nervousness made her feel slightly guilty, and grudgingly, she asked, "What?"

"Hold on a second," he said. "I'll go get it."

"Ginny," Fred said, when his twin had left. "It'll be okay - "

"I'm sick to death of people telling me that," she snapped at him, still not looking at him. "You don't know that. No one does." She sighed, her voice softening when she spoke again. "I just... don't understand, you know? I don't get why it all happened, why You-Know-Who is so evil... and sometimes I'm - I'm scared - "

"If you're only scared sometimes," Fred said, sounding uncharacteristically gentle, "Then you're a hell of a lot braver than the rest of us."

She smiled, still looking out the window. "I just feel so useless..." Her smile faded. "Why did he leave me behind?"

Fred sighed. "Because he's Harry, Ginny. He's a stupid little noble git who thinks it's all down to him to save the world, even though he's just as scared as everyone else, except you, maybe, because you're only scared _sometimes_." He paused. "He left me behind too, Ginny, and George and Mum and Dad and even Auntie Muriel. He left a lot of us behind, and don't think for a second that there aren't times when I look at all the crap I've made and feel so completely useless it suffocates me." He gave a grim little laugh. "Listen to me, huh?"

"Sometimes," she said, with a strange desire to open completely up to him. "I wonder why we're fighting this war. Isn't that awful, Fred? But I really don't know; I couldn't even explain it to Muriel. I know that You-Know-Who's evil, and that he should be stopped, but it just seems sometimes that it's never going to happen, and we're all just killing ourselves trying to make something go back to the way it was, and _you can't turn back time_." She felt short of breath, lightheaded. "We've already lost so much... It won't be the same again." She voice dropped to a whisper, "I know we have to keep fighting, but sometimes I wonder if there's anything left to fight for."

She hated herself for saying the words, for not even sounding like herself anymore. Fred said nothing, and it made her feel all the worse. She needed an answer.

Then the door banged open as George ran into the room, laughing, holding a small, skin-colored object in his hand. "A fake _ear_."

"There you are, Ginny," Fred said, and he sounded suddenly gleeful. "A fake ear."

Ginny turned away from the window at last, as the twins cracked up, and she started to laugh too, not in that desperate, bitter way she'd been doing all day, but a real guffaw, a disgusting belly-laugh. She wasn't thick enough to miss the answer to her question, to miss the meaning behind Fred's words.

This Christmas was miserable and sad, but it wasn't hopeless, not when she had Fred and George, not when the world still had laughter and fake ears.

Not when Harry was out there, somewhere, for her, with Ron and Hermione.

And when the time came, she would fight for them all.


End file.
